should they just stop pitting mutants against other teams?

[TheDeadSpace]

The X-men used to have a lot of good villains, but they keep reforming them.
(And by reforming them, I mean they let them keep acting like villains, but the X-men are okay with that now.)

Considering it gives rather easy content for the books, it's not that surprising.

[jwatson]

The x-men have an endless amount of villains it seems the real problem is people want mutant on mutant crime for some reason. Hickman introduced a whole host of problems and villains as did every other writer before the Destiny of X era. Look no further than sword, new mutants, x-factor, marauders. they have cosmic threats, human threats, robot threats, occasional mutant threat, and so on and so forth.

one would think sinister and apoc were villains of the week in every xmen issue if they are missed so sorely as only villains when generally they would show up and not be seen for a few years after an arc.

[TheDeadSpace]

The x-men have an endless amount of villains it seems the real problem is people want mutant on mutant crime for some reason. Hickman introduced a whole host of problems and villains as did every other writer before the Destiny of X era. Look no further than sword, new mutants, x-factor, marauders. they have cosmic threats, human threats, robot threats, occasional mutant threat, and so on and so forth.

one would think sinister and apoc were villains of the week in every xmen issue if they are missed so sorely as only villains when generally they would show up and not be seen for a few years after an arc.

I think the bigger issue is the fact that none of the new threats actually feel like threats.

[rcaguy]

Hero vs hero causes controversy, and Breevort has said time and time again fan outrage sells.

Of course, what he doesn't mention is that eventually fans get tired of it and just leave the books, which is exactly what happened with the books he's editing on the Avengers side, and they are now forced to get involved with the X-men to increase interest in them.

Which doesn't really work because poeple like me who were attracted to the X-books were never really interested In the Avengers and the rest. Still aren't.

[rcaguy]

The x-men have an endless amount of villains it seems the real problem is people want mutant on mutant crime for some reason. Hickman introduced a whole host of problems and villains as did every other writer before the Destiny of X era. Look no further than sword, new mutants, x-factor, marauders. they have cosmic threats, human threats, robot threats, occasional mutant threat, and so on and so forth.

one would think sinister and apoc were villains of the week in every xmen issue if they are missed so sorely as only villains when generally they would show up and not be seen for a few years after an arc.

What they really mean is that the X-books lack comic booky villains like Doom,Lex Luthor ect,ect,ect. You know the kind that run around screaming "I'm a Villain's Villian" like you see in Power Rangers.....

They tried it with Magneto and Maddie and a few others, but realized that it really doesn't work for them.

Heck, trying to use Loki and Hela as "Pure" villains tend to fall on it's face in the X-books.

[jwatson]

What they really mean is that the X-books lack comic booky villains like Doom,Lex Luthor ect,ect,ect. You know the kind that run around screaming "I'm a Villain's Villian" like you see in Power Rangers.....

That lands on the foot of the writers not the franchise though. There are a lot of threats to explore but the writers like to keep the story contained to what they feel the status quo should be like. That was not happening when ewing was directing. There were plots with the shiar, the brood, there were plots with cotv, the world, the thing taken out of Storm in giant size, the alien species that nightcrawler let take over the mansion. feilong, orichis, nimrod, dominions, phalanx. The writers or marvel chose to do another vs event and set up another of their heroes to take on mutants. Again, not on the franchise but the writers and lack of imagination. The sales were there according to hickman so it's not like people who buy didn't want something new and different. Krakoa could have created story for all of marvel, imagine now that the galaxy has eyes on them writers could actually, um create things but instead they wanted to destroy things. so i'm really not getting the lack of comic book villains. Nothing is stopping apoc or even sinister from having a conflict, Sabretooth has been set up to be a huge potential villain, nature girl is tarnishing the x-men brand, so it's not like there is a lack but rather a will.

[H-E-D]

any of the time manipulation mutants can just cancel this whole show:

- Magik or Tempus can just time travel back to warn everyone

- Tempo , Sway , fabian cortez, and Synch can just form a time freeze circuit around these "hex"

This applies to... every story?

[Grunty]

I think the bigger issue is the fact that none of the new threats actually feel like threats.

They really gave the heros far too many tools to resolve their fights asap.

"Oh why can't they just teleport the villain into the sun? They have like 20 teleporters now!" "Why can't they just flash freeze the lava? They have like 10 temperature manipulators!" "Why can't they just blow the whole place up? They have like a hundred energy manipulators now!" Etc.

The fact that the majority of their mutant villains and therefor super powered opposition is now on their side, both deprives them off a large part of established minor villains, but also further increases their toolbox.

Though a further problem is also that the villains at the moment also arguably fall flat in terms of characterization, not only because they are so swiftly dealt with (never building up a true sense of menance or at one that felt "earned"), but also because their interactions hardly leave a mark.

[Devaishwarya]

They tried that. As Hickman showed in his Inferno LS. It's not that the new villains aren't worthy...it's that the writers are not utilising them.

What has Percy done with Peacock Man and Mikail Rasputin in all the issues of X-Force?
Duggan teased us with Orchis who has now added Moira, Feilong and Club Sinister but...gave us a year of Fungus Jones, instead. But we should get CotV in year two.
Tini has Merlin in Otherworld for however long that lasts.
Ewing is busy world-building in XMR with Brand, Isca, and perhaps the Tarn-less Locus Vile to contend with in the future.
Spurrier seems to be incorporating some of that Arakko lore but recently added Mother Righteous in LoX
Marauders have their Crimson Thingies and Brimstone Love.
Gillen has his Eternals...with more Sinister (ugh!) being the Big Baddie post JD.

[WallStreeter]

Which doesn't really work because poeple like me who were attracted to the X-books were never really interested In the Avengers and the rest. Still aren't.

But people like me love both the XMen and Avengers.

[WallStreeter]

The XMen these days are mostly into internal mutant politics. So there are almost lo mutant villains per say. We just get to see competing mutant interests.

With all the extinct threats to mutants in the 21st century it made no sense for the XMen to fight Magneto, Apocalypse, Sinister, Mystique, or Exodus. Non mutants became their biggest threats.

I have always thought the XMen were their best when everyone was against them, including vampires, gods, aliens, Inhumans, sentinels, crazy humans, demons,etc.

[Omega Alpha]

With all the extinct threats to mutants in the 21st century it made no sense for the XMen to fight Magneto, Apocalypse, Sinister, Mystique, or Exodus. Non mutants became their biggest threats.
.

This is the point some people don't understand. Exodus or Apocalypse are not good guys, but they're not attempting to annihilate all mutants. They wouldn't be a priority to the X-men, and in Krakoa, they're not even attempting to kill humans.

[Devaishwarya]

The XMen these days are mostly into internal mutant politics. So there are almost lo mutant villains per say. We just get to see competing mutant interests.

With all the extinct threats to mutants in the 21st century it made no sense for the XMen to fight Magneto, Apocalypse, Sinister, Mystique, or Exodus. Non mutants became their biggest threats.

I have always thought the XMen were their best when everyone was against them, including vampires, gods, aliens, Inhumans, sentinels, crazy humans, demons,etc.

We still have most of those.
Inhumans have just been switched out for Eternals.
Omega Sentinel, Nimrod, T-M11, and Crazy Humans (Orchis, Feilong) have consolidated.
Brand and Orbis Stellaris have the Aliens side covered.
Vampires, Demons, Locus Vile etc. from Otherworld

They're just spread out across many titles instead of one or two (as back in the day).

And the writers aren't injecting the same laser-point focus on them with regards to definitive story arcs and plots. They show up for an arc, they're stale-mated, then the go back to their various lairs. There really hasn't been a single story arc/arcs constructed entirely around a decisive Villain threat. The most credible threat is Orchis which is ongoing and seemingly never-ending and just waiting in the wings.

[ChronoRogue]

The x-men have an endless amount of villains it seems the real problem is people want mutant on mutant crime for some reason. Hickman introduced a whole host of problems and villains as did every other writer before the Destiny of X era. Look no further than sword, new mutants, x-factor, marauders. they have cosmic threats, human threats, robot threats, occasional mutant threat, and so on and so forth.

one would think sinister and apoc were villains of the week in every xmen issue if they are missed so sorely as only villains when generally they would show up and not be seen for a few years after an arc.

No, the problem is none of those threats feel personal. Why am I going to care about random stock Otherworld creatures attacking the X-Men, when it's basically equivalent to an animal wanting them out of their territory or seeing them as food? The best X-Men villains historically have personality, motivations for their actions and personal connections to the X-Men; characters like Mystique, Juggernaut and a host of other characters before they were 'reformed'.

You need this to have good villains and the new era has really failed on setting any up.

Also mutant vs mutant in itself feels personal because it's internal community politics (a lot of the times) and a commentary on self-policing. If writers are going to be introducing new villains, they need to add ethos to them. Ironically the closest we get to that is with Nimrod, a robot, but they've barely used him. Same for Omega Sentinel who used to be an ally of the X-Men, why are none of the writers milking that drama dry? Sigh.

Anyway lets go through each title and see why their use of villains has been lackluster.

X-Men: Cordyceps Jones, Doctor Stasis, Feilong

I'll give Duggan some credit, he's doing a lot of heavy lifting for setting up Orchis. His execution on them however is so-so and the reveal that Stasis is a version of Sinister kinda undercuts some of his set-up, but I guess we'll see where it goes. Can't say he hit the mark with giving Feilong ethos either as it feels very derivative to a lot of human villains we've had in the past and reads as pretty impersonal, but again points for the attempt.

X-Men Red: Abigail Brand, Vulcan

Ewing is one of the more talented writers, but his books problem is that they usually get cut short and pulled into too many nonsensical events. So far Red has been exploring Brand's betrayal and manipulation of Vulcan but we're still barely getting to see her motivations and the consequences of her actions so I can't really say much here. S.W.O.R.D suffered similar issues. I will say Red has the most potential, but lack of consistency due to outside factors hurts it.

Immortal X-Men: Selene

The almost anthology way the book is being executed I think is hurting with consistency. Great way to set up characterization for the cast, poor tool to help with exploring antagonists. It's also already being derailed into an event which isn't helping but the book is still in it's early stages so I'll give it a pass for now.

Marauders Vol 1: Sebastien Shaw, Homines Verendi

Spent way too long on the internal drama of Kitty vs Shaw. It also wasn't even satisfying drama or felt very personal, more like Shaw got offended once and overreacted as a result, then the Marauders spent the rest of the time kicking a dead horse (Shaw). Meanwhile Shaw still sits on the QC, so nothing really changed here. The Verendi still feel like joke villains and not the fun kind like Mojo. I honestly prefer the way Duggan is using villains in X-Men, even if that still needs work too.

Marauders Vol 2: Imperial Guard, Holocaust

Still very early yet but I do notice the threats feel impersonal, I honestly think this more of a cast issue as I'm sure if we had more space-faring X-Men maybe it'd feel less jarring (when is Rachel going to get her revenge). Also when you have Cassandra Nova being a genocidal muppet next to you; it's hard to take some of the threats shown seriously.

Excalibur: Morgen Le Fay, Merlin, Coven of Akkaba

What are these villains connection to mutants? Honestly most of these villains attack the X-Men because they see them as busybodies and interlopers. It's does not read as personal, even with Morgana calling them witch-breed. If anything, the X-Men read as colonists in Otherworld but there isn't any satisfying optics to that either in the book. Coven Akkaba is the most consistent appearing, yet seem to lack the most depth and nothing is really explored on their motivations.

New Mutants: Shadow King

I like Vita, but they haven't really established any villains. The one major arc was Shadow King possessing Amahl Farouk but our actual time with this villain (Shadow King) felt brief. The focus was on Amahl, his development and misguided views on helping teenage mutants. It's not a bad set up, but we really need more than this.

X-Force: Xeno, Reavers, Mikeal Rasputin, Cerebrax

Percy seems hyper-focused on horror and shock value rather than giving his villains complex motivations. Points for consistent use and some surface level exploration of motivations, but the execution isn't the best. and cerebrax is a new low

Gillen and Orlando I should give more time to, but everyone else uses way too many random stock villains without trying to build them up as personal threats.

I also think villain choice is an issue. You have Omega Sentinel, why haven't the Prime Sentinels made a comeback to really sink in the theme of mutant vs machine? Or check even Cameron Hodge, another blend of human and machine. He's dead but when has that ever stopped anyone in the MU. Human villains also need more ethos, I mentioned here in my first post but few villains get the kind of set up a character like Leper Queen has. Or just build up the Reavers to be a serious threat...

Anyway, rant over. Villain usage is poor in this era and little has been done to really build them up as convincing threats. Instead of wasting time fighting the Eternals, you could've used that energy to build up a villain similar to the last great X-Men crossovers did with "Messiah Complex" and the Marauders and "Second Coming" with Bastion. Or heck, "Necrosha" with Selene.

[Sutekh]

Duggan teased us with Orchis who has now added Moira, Feilong and Club Sinister but...gave us a year of Fungus Jones, instead. But we should get CotV in year two.

On a tangent, as someone who dabbles in writing, I just do not get the use of the Children of the Vault. Your protagonists meet some of them. Fight/talk/flirt happens. Whatever. It gets resolved, as things do in serial adventures. But while any other character they've met can come back, the Children pop back into the Vault, 1000 subjective years go by before we see them again, and the next time we meet 'Children of the Vault' it's their great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids of the ones we met before, who mysteriously look and act almost the same as the last group we ran into.

Character development? Not gonna be none, since they died 950-some subjective years ago and are just stuff these new people read about in history books. Meaningful connections established? Not gonna be none. "Oh, you flirted with / had a rivalry with great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granny? Well, she left bupkiss for me in her will, and I'm not her, so whatevs."

Just, a weird concept that kind of falls down on it's face, since they are supposed to get evolutionarily better somehow each time they show up, but, can't possibly 'get better' at the same rate as the X-Men, who now have a half-dozen Omegas running around with them, and even the non-Omegas like Psylocke and Cyclops and Rogue have some feats far hotter than any Vault-child to their name. If the premise lived up to it's potential, they'd literally *ALL* come out of the Vault Omegas after the first time they stuck their heads out and got curbstomped. 'Cause that's how mutant evolution works, right?